“As I remember, the last time I saw you, you had agreed to marry me. We had our little ceremony in that warehouse. And we consummated our marriage on the floor of it.”

She winced. He had lowered his voice, and his words were a smooth-as-honey murmur beside her ear. “I’d say that does make it my business.”

Then, before she could stop him, before she could react, he spun her around, put his hands on her upper arms, and slanted his mouth over hers.

At first she froze in shock. And horror.

She stayed as rigid as her metal mannequins — or she tried. He was so much bigger than she remembered.

Then the tension — the fear — began to evaporate. Something else pounded in its place. Desire. Hot, maddening, inconvenient, disastrous desire.

He tasted of smoke, of liquor and coffee, of heat and man and sin. Every decadent thing about men she could imagine was imprinted on her lips by Lyan’s mouth. He tipped her off her feet, so she had to wrap her arms around his broad back. She melted, like wax beneath a candle’s flame.

Oh. Oh. Ooooh. She’d kissed him before. Made love to him before, which had been the most dazzling, wet, hot, wonderful and heartbreaking night of her life. She should be impervious to his skill — much more skill than he had ten years ago. His lips teased hers. His mouth forced hers wide and she loved it. And she moaned, breathlessly, as his tongue slid in and played and reminded her of what she’d dreamed of him doing for so many years …

A whole decade. And the one kiss she’d had since then had been forced upon her. A harsh, vicious assault she’d escaped when her attacker had been struck with a frying pan. After that, she’d never wanted to be touched again. Until now …

She had to stop …

But to her shock, she couldn’t make herself pull away. Lyan broke the kiss, set her back on her feet and stared at her. With green eyes that gleamed as brilliant as lanterns.

“W-why did you do that?”

A sardonic grin twisted his handsome mouth. “I just wanted to see if it had been worth thinking about you for all these years.”

His very answer terrified her. There was no hatred in his voice. Only regret. “And was it?” she asked coolly.

“Let’s just say I can have my secrets too.” But his gaze ravaged her mouth. And her lips were still so sensitive, just the heat in his vivid emerald eyes made her tremble.

“I promise you, Sal,” he growled, “I will get to the truth. I will find out if you were involved with Lady Maryanne’s disappearance. And I’ll find out if you are keeping my daughter from me.”

Lyan followed the tall, icily correct butler down the gloomy halls of Cavendish House — he felt he was trailing a walking cadaver. As he neared his client’s study, he planned what he would say. What he would reveal.

He hadn’t expected Sally to give him any information. But he’d observed her shock when he’d said Maryanne was missing, and it had told him more than words. Sal had known he would question her about a marriage — she’d never anticipated a disappearance.

And he hadn’t anticipated kissing her. His mouth had been on hers before he’d realized what he was doing. Her kiss had burned a path through his hardened heart like a flame along a fuse. He couldn’t think of anything but getting her back into his arms, keeping her there for ever, kissing and kissing and kissing her, until she was panting and needy and begging him to make love to her.

Never, on a job, did he lose control. Never had he let his sexual desire take charge. He couldn’t afford to do it now.

Yet knowing that, he was still mentally undressing Sally as he sauntered down the corridor of the Marquis of Cavendish’s home. He could picture her slender body naked, completely bared to him, and draped sensuously across her desk. For his pleasure, he arranged her on her front — on her small round breasts and smooth tummy — with her naked rump saucily lifted to tempt him.

Hell.

Even with their past hanging between them, with her betrayal sitting in his gut like a knife blade, he had to admire her. He’d always known she was tough, but now he appreciated she was also intelligent and clever. A better life agreed with her. She had changed from a stick-thin seventeen-year-old with dirty hair to a tall, striking beauty. Her severe hairstyle had made him hunger to tear out her pins and watch the whisky-coloured mass fall down her back. He’d never guessed her hair was that rich amber hue. As for her dress, it was a plain sheath that clung to her slender figure. It’s simplicity made him speculate how she would look without it.

If he hadn’t known her from the past, he would have been enjoying himself. A canny, beautiful woman — she was the type of adversary who made his work interesting.

When he looked at her, he felt … not anger, but sorrow and regret. When he’d walked through her feminine shop, he’d been stunned by one astonishing realization — the tumultuous ending of their relationship had been for the best. Where would they have been if she hadn’t taken half their money, run out on him and built up her business? Where would he have been if he hadn’t gone after her, gotten himself stabbed by a footpad in his distraction, and discovered he had to get out of the stews before that world ate him alive?

The butler rapped upon a dark study door. “Mr Foxton has arrived to report, My Lord.”

A raspy voice barked at him to enter, and Lyan found himself once again in the dark, cavelike study of Horace Beckworth, Lord Cavendish.

The Marquis tossed back a glass of brandy and stomped forwards. His jowls shook as he bellowed, “Bloody hell, Foxton, you haven’t found her yet. I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish by coming to see me without my ward, but if your goal was to infuriate me, you have succeeded. There are other Runners in London. And other, successful private investigators.”

Lyan disliked Cavendish. “You are free to hire one of them, My Lord. But this case has become personally interesting to me. Whether I’m working for you or not, I will find out what happened to Lady Maryanne.”

Cavendish grimaced. “Fine then. Have you learned anything?”

In curt tones, he gave Cavendish a report on what he’d learned at Gretna. “As yet, there is no evidence she has married,” he concluded.

“So then it is possible her seducer never meant to marry her — only ruin her!”

“That is a possibility. That’s why I came to you tonight. To find out if there could be someone who would seek revenge on you through your ward.”

“Revenge? For what?” The eyes narrowed in the fleshy face. “I will remind you I am a gentleman of honour. If I have made enemies, they would meet me over pistols. On that you are wasting your time.”

Yes, he thought he was. There had been a fleeting look of guilt in Sal’s shrewd blue eyes, along with a quiver of apprehension, which told him she knew who had accompanied Lady Maryanne on her escape.

“But you could find no sign of her in Scotland?” Cavendish barked.

“None,” Lyan said, and he watched his client’s face.

The Marquis fell back into his large, leather chair. “Do you think it is possible she never made it to Gretna Green because she is dead?”

“It is a possibility, yes,” Lyan said. Not one he would have wanted to leap to, if the girl had been under his care. However, he had a young sister. It would be his worst nightmare to lose her. But there was something different in Cavendish’s expression. Not horror, nor despair. It was a look Lyan knew from his days on the streets. Anticipation.

Cavendish pulled out a linen handkerchief to mop his brow. “I have to know, Foxton,” he croaked. “I have to know what has happened to her.”

The back of Lyan’s neck prickled. Cavendish had been the best friend of Lady Maryanne’s father and was the trustee of the girl’s fortune. Her father had made millions in speculative ventures and had settled a large portion of his money — that part of his estate not entailed — on his daughter.

Lady Maryanne was a wealthy woman. Lyan had gone to Somerset House and reviewed the will left by Lady Maryanne’s late father. If she died, Cavendish got the fortune. Of course, when she married Cavendish, he got control of her money. But if she married someone else, Cavendish lost his chance of any of it.

“Find her. Or find evidence that she is lost to me. I want it within the week or I’m done with you. And don’t think I’ll just fire you. I have no patience with men who fail me. I make them pay.”

“I would advise you, Cavendish, not to threaten me,” Lyan growled. But he thought of Lady Maryanne. She was a sweet, gentle young lady, very much like his younger sister Laura. She deserved a better life than being locked up in this mausoleum with an old roué who hungered for her money. And he prayed she was still alive.

After his interview with Cavendish, he needed to clear the foul stench of greed and arrogance from his senses. Lyan went home. Walking up the steps to his house normally gave him a feeling of pleasure. It pleased him to know this was where Laura would remember growing up. She had spent seven years in the slums, but those memories were fading. And he wanted to keep it that way. She deserved to think of this as her world.

He gazed up at the elegant Georgian façade with its rows of mullioned windows glinting in the sun, its neat blue door, the freshly painted wrought-iron fencing, and its promise of security and position. He’d acquired it with the rewards he’d earned as a Runner. Once he became the Earl of Doncaster, he would give up this house and take Laura to the earldom’s London house, an enormous mansion on Park Lane. Laura was seventeen. Now that he’d been discovered as the long-lost heir to the Doncaster title, he could give her the come-out she deserved.